


Translating a Textbook: the Epic

by discountsatanism



Category: Fablehaven Series - Brandon Mull
Genre: Gen, and that neither sorenson sibling is straight, and that warren is The Cool Cousin, and the theory of romantic relationships in general is alluded to, but that's not reeeeeally enough to tag for 'em you feel, the concept of brackendra is mentioned, there are also several specific headcanons treated as fact, these include that seth has adhd, this is a story about the absolute most dramatic way to read a textbook, thrills! chills! terrible lying! arguing for no reason! translation errors!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 13:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13272003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discountsatanism/pseuds/discountsatanism
Summary: But Seth Sorenson hadn't spent thirteen entire years of his young life gaining the distrust and patronization of every single authority figure he met by taking the easy, obvious option, so there had to be another way.





	Translating a Textbook: the Epic

**Author's Note:**

> it's been [comically long period of time], but i literally just got dragonwatch for christmas, reread the entire fablehaven series, wrote a bit, had to pause from writing because [relative] died, wrote some more, and then wrote EVEN MORE in a mad haze of having spent three actual hours staring at a wall because my internet wasn't working and i do not deal with boredom well. anyway, enjoy this _twelve thousand_ word fanfiction about a character in a children's book being incapable of having a normal conversation.

Seth had mostly dropped his strict anti-book policy after managing to convince himself that Kendra didn’t own the concept of reading, but no amount of self-improvement could change the fact that he wasn’t omnilingual. So here he was, in possession of what was almost definitely either a book about magic or a magic book complete with scrawling in symbols he’d never seen before, and he couldn’t read a word. He didn't even know what language it was aside from the vague itchy feeling in his head when he's seen something somewhere before. 

_So what now?_

Now, there was of course the obvious first option: deposit the useless and honestly probably super cursed book in an innocent location and then move on with his life, hoping against hope that he actually hadn't missed anything and the book was really lame.

But Seth Sorenson hadn't spent thirteen entire years of his young life gaining the distrust and patronization of every single authority figure he met by taking the easy, obvious option, so there had to be another way.

The cover was dark green fabric stretched over what felt like wood, blank except for the shining probably-writing in the lower right corner, which was completely unhelpful in figuring out either what the book was about or what language it was in. Honestly, magical authors are the _worst_ at telegraphing the content of their books with the cover. They're magic, so they could do things like enchant the cover to always display the title in the reader's first language or have images that shift to reflect the part of the book the reader will be most interested in or an infinite amount of really cool stuff, but nope! The clearest statement magical books make is that sometimes books about really dangerous magic are bound in, like, skin or something.

Seth stared harder at the book. It continued to be really unhelpful.

Trying to steer away from just taking his frustration out on it via attempted mind lasers, Seth tried to cross-reference the language with times he'd seen magical languages before. It probably wasn't demonic or troll or goblin or any other dark magic languages because he could read those, and since he'd never actually seen Newel or Doren write anything(honestly, he wasn't sure they had a language) or, for that matter, any other magical creatures, he was out of luck for references. Kendra being fairykind meant she spoke a lot of fairy languages, so it was relatively likely that if he couldn't translate it she could. Unfortunately, Kendra would probably skin him alive if she knew he was up to his usual tricks during the New Cold War, But This Time Between Dragons And Two Teenagers, so _she_ was entirely useless. Worse than useless, actually. Actively harmful. Actively harmful was what he was looking for. Basically, she was a non-option. 

Someone at Blackwell probably knew, although he hadn't built up enough trust with any of the staff to realistically hope they wouldn't immediately snitch on him to Marat. Everybody in his family was right out except for Warren, and he was on a mission for the next very long amount of time.

Calvin had been helpful in the past, but unless the book happened to be written in Nipsie or he turned out to be fluent in whatever language it was, he wouldn’t be enough.

On the subject of just asking random magical creatures for help, he was in a _dragon sanctuary._ Someone here had to know their stuff.

He didn’t know if there were brownies in Blackwell, and if there were, Calvin would have to talk to them, fairies hated him as a general rule, Raxtus was Kendra’s friend and any other dragons would either eat him or snitch, the horses that could read couldn’t talk and didn’t look like they could write, etc. etc.

Luckily, in times of such hardship, the Bad Idea goblin broke down the door to his brain and shared with him words of wisdom: ask the Fair Folk.

Sure, the last time he’d gone, he’d almost single-handedly ruined any hope of the new caretakers of Wyrmroost having any sort of positive relationship with Lord Dalgorel, but that would be probably maybe fine. The Fair Folk had learned how to build a town, so they were _some_ kind of civilized, and they _had_ a language he didn’t know, so, statistically, asking them increased his chances of meeting someone who could translate the book for him.

Or, finally, he could ask Warren. He had stolen said book _from_ Warren, of course, which Warren would most likely figure out by virtue of Seth turning up with the book someone had stolen from him, but hey, he at least had a reason to know the mystery language.

Hopefully, he wouldn't need to resort to this particular plan because Calvin would know what language it was and be able to translate it, but Seth was a master of pattern recognition and he was well aware that an easy solution was nigh impossible because karma was real and he'd spent his entire past life killing ants with magnifying glasses.

-

"I have psychic powers," Seth muttered into the hands he was trying to squash his head in.

"You do?" Calvin asked. "Is that relevant?"

Seth sighed. “Nope, it was a joke. You sure you don't know how to translate it at all?"

"I would help if I could," Calvin said apologetically. "I swore an oath and everything, remember?"

Seth did. Turning and shifting so he could dramatically lay on his back with his knees folded and his arm over his eyes instead of sitting cross-legged with his head in his hands, Seth looked up at the wrist blocking the ceiling which was blocking the sky, silently asking the universe why it thought he hadn't gotten the message by now and when it would lighten up on him a bit.

"Fair folk," he mumbled. "What's the language even called? Fair folkese. Fair folkish."

“It _could_ be their language,” Calvin mumbled. “However, I could be convinced just as easily that it was almost any other language. I only speak English and Nipsie, you know.”

“Hmm.” Seth tapped his foot. “Wait, does that mean I speak more languages than you do?”

“I believe so.”

Seth sat up and looked over at him. “Weird. Anyways, all I know is that it’s probably not troll or wraith or anything, ‘cause if it was I could translate it. So it’s not English, Nipsie, troll, wraith, goblin, or demon.”

Calvin hummed. “So that leaves. . .”

“Everything else,” Seth said. “Well. . .its alphabet is weird, so it’s probably not French or Spanish or anything either. Doesn’t look like Chinese or Japanese. Don’t know that much about Korean, but it’s got more squiggles than I remember Korean having. Basically, it doesn’t _look_ like a human language.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down terribly helpfully,” Calvin said.

“I know,” Seth groaned. “Work with me, though.”

Calvin sighed. “Okay, well, knowing its origin might help. Where’d you get the book?”

The answer to that question was that he had impulsively stolen it from Warren's cabin in a fit of boredom and frustration because he knew that Warren was the real MVP and aggressive proponent of Discovering New Things and General Muckery so when the Bad Idea goblin told him he had to do something drastic, he’d grabbed the nearest thing without really looking and stolen it and then subsequently forgotten about it until now, when he’d forgotten where it used to be and was 100% sure he couldn’t inconspicuously return it. Besides, Kendra had really stolen his spotlight by becoming a dragon tamer on her own, so he was looking for something cool to do.

“A place,” Seth said.

“How long have you had it?”

Two weeks.

“A bit,” Seth said.

“What do you know about it?”

Absolutely nothing aside from the fact that it was a book. He’d opened it, but it was just filled with writing in shiny purple ink. No pictures, no diagrams.

“Pretty much nothing.”

Calvin sighed.

“Why do you even want to read it?” Calvin asked, looking over at him.

Seth looked back up at the ceiling and shrugged. “I just. Do?”

“Because reading is an adventure?”

Equipped with the death glare of someone who had to sit through that course in first grade, Seth turned to glare at Calvin, who raised his hands in mock defense. Seth sighed.

“Kind of,” Seth admitted, angry at himself. “I mean, if I have it, what’s the point in not using it, you know?”

“But to use it, you’d have to find someone who spoke the language. Kendra’s fairykind abilities could-”

“Kendra isn’t an option.”

“I guess so. So then the next best thing is. . .you look like you have an idea.”

Screwing his eyes shut and hoping for the best, Seth managed to mumble out “Terrabelle.” He opened them cautiously, looking down at Calvin.

Calvin was looking at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Eve likes you, right?” Seth asked. “Plus, they know languages. And. . .uh. . .”

Calvin sighed.

“Do you have a better idea?” Seth asked.

Rolling his eyes, Calvin tapped his foot for a bit. “It’s. . .not _not_ an option,” he finally said.

Seth nodded. “So. . .Eve?”

Calvin shrugged. “She thinks I’m interesting, at any rate, and she can read. But this doesn’t look like a page-turner, so asking a child to translate it could go poorly.”

Seth re-opened the book to skim through it. The writing was small and cramped, every page was entirely covered in it, and, as mentioned, no pictures and no diagrams. He saw Calvin’s point.

“We’re about the same age,” he argued. “Adjusting for species.”

“Counting on her to have your particular breed of stubbornness could be unwise,” Calvin reminded him. “Not every young child has the will to get themselves into as much trouble as you.”

Feeling slightly attacked, Seth closed the book. “Garreth? He’s the closest thing to a loose cannon I know, unless we’re planning to break into the dungeon to talk to that rebel guy.”

Calvin tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Garreth is likely to be the happy medium between educated and friendly. Why Lomo, though?”

“Criminals don’t snitch,” Seth said. “. . .also, with the shadow charmer thing combined with living in what feels like a festive cave, I’m starting to get used to get used to dungeons, you know?”

He didn’t point out that the Terrabelle dungeon was nowhere near the doom and gloom he’d become used to. It was still his brand, and he was sticking to it.

“Lomo still feels like an unnecessary extreme, and giving Lord Dalgorel another reason to hate you would be unwise. Plus, neither of us know him, so we can’t trust that he’ll be helpful.”

Seth nodded. “Garreth, then. It can’t be that hard to convince Hendrick that I want to visit Terrabelle for innocent reasons, right?”

“If you can hide the book,” Calvin said. “From a seasoned hunter who has specifically said that his perception is incredibly above average.”

“I take my satchel everywhere,” Seth said. “Just having a book isn’t gonna set off that many alarms.”

“Well then, what’s your innocent reason?”

Finally having come to the bridge Seth was intending to cross when he came to it, Seth realized he didn’t have any great ideas.

“I. . .uh. . .want. . .to. . .” Seth trailed off. “Diplomacy something? I was crap at diplomacy last time, so I could say I wanted to talk with Garreth about how to talk to Lord Dalgorel better in the future?”

“You might have something there,” Calvin said, “but why wouldn’t you talk to Dalgorel himself?”

“It would be dumb to fight the last boss at level one,” Seth said. “If I’m trying to build up diplomatic skills, I should start with someone who’s familiar with the rules I’m gonna have to follow but who won’t judge mistakes as harshly.”

“It’s worth a try,” Calvin muttered. “Just have an exit plan.

Seth sighed. “I’ll figure something out.” Then, looking at the beam of sunlight from his window, going almost vertically to the ground, “Also, how long have we been sitting here?”

Calvin shrugged. “Few hours. It’s almost noon.”

“Ugh,” Seth said. “I was planning to _do things_ today.”

-

“Since when do you care about diplomacy?” Kendra asked.

Seth had prepared himself for this question. “I’m not dumb and I know that since I’m a caretaker now I’m gonna have to get better at it,” he said, trying not to sound rehearsed.

“Suspicious,” Kendra said. “What’s your angle?”

“. . .Learning diplomacy?” Seth said. “I just said that. My angle is to visit Garreth and ask him how to stop angering Lord Dalgorel with my very presence so he stops interrupting conversations to ask me who I think I am.”

Kendra squinted at him. “This sounds super out of character for you. Are you trying to visit the Somber Knight? Break Lomo out of prison? Steal the fancy candlesticks from the palace to sell? You wouldn’t be doing something like this _without_ an ulterior motive.”

Seth grimaced. “Kens,” he said, sugary-sweet, “if you’ve already decided I’m lying, why bother asking me?”

“Because,” Kendra said, “if I know what dumb thing you’re planning on doing, I can stop you.”

“Then,” Seth said pointedly, “if, hypothetically, I _was_ planning to do something dumb, you just destroyed any chance of me telling you. So either I’m telling the truth, and this conversation is pointless, or I’m lying, and this conversation is pointless.”

Kendra rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up in the air. “It wouldn’t be pointless if you _told the truth_!” she yelled.

“Why do you think I’m not?!” Seth asked, gritting his teeth to stop himself from going high enough to be technically screeching.

“Because!” Kendra yelled. “Like you said! Whenever you’re doing something dumb, you insist on lying about it and not letting anyone else have any input because you’re scared they’ll derail your dumb plans!”

“Children!” Hendrick yelled, both siblings turning to look at him. “Either you resolve this without violence and I do not intervene, or you attempt violence and I do. The choice is in your hands, but let it be known that I am the only person in this room who is armed.”

“. . .Fair,” Seth said.

“Alright,” Kendra grumbled.

Through a series of glares, both Sorenson siblings agreed that this was going to be an endless, eternal, unresolvable argument, and they had more pressing things to scream at each other about.

Hendrick seemed two parts exasperated and three parts unreadable, which wasn’t surprising. “My opinion is that if he is being honest about his motives, he could certainly use the practice.”

“I’m not saying that’s wrong,” Kendra said, “I’m just _saying_ that someone should make sure there isn’t an asterisk to that with a footnote that clarifies he’s also going to sneak out of Terrabelle on his own and go challenge Celebrant to a fistfight.”

“You told Celebrant to ‘slink back to his hole’,” Seth said, fighting not to yell. “You don’t _get_ to play the ‘what if he insults Celebrant’ card!”

Kendra’s hand stopped from where it was gesturing towards him. “. . .Even so,” she said, teeth gritted, “don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t do anything without thinking it through first,” Seth promised.

“Fine,” Kendra said, glaring, if possible, even harder.

“So can I go then?” Seth asked Hendrick.

Hendrick gave him a look that suggested that Agad never pulled this kind of nonsense and Seth was failing to live up to his predecessor.

Seth, immune to disapproval from authority since the tender age of seven, did not waver.

“Inconclusively, yes,” Hendrick said tiredly. “Marat and your grandparents will have to agree.”

“Sounds great,” Seth said, turning on his heel and walking out of the room.

Calvin shifted from inside his pocket. “I think you handled that pretty well.”

“Leave me alone,” Seth muttered.

He, very maturely and despite the fact that the argument shook out _in his favor_ , sulked until three hours later when Kendra knocked on his door.

He opened it, saying nothing.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re cleared to go.”

“Good,” he said on impulse, aggressively.

_Wait_ , his brain said, fully processing what had happened.

“Thanks,” he said, quietly.

Kendra tapped her arm. “I’m,” she said, cutting herself off. “It’s. You know. I’m. . .”

She sighed.

“I shouldn’t have yelled,” she said. “You’ve. . .not all your plans are stupid.”

Seth blinked. “Thanks?” he said tentatively.

She shut the door for him.

-

Seth had never really thought about how much horse riding jostles you around, or specifically how much things in your pocket move when horse riding jostles you around.

Calvin was admirably silent in the face of what had to be super uncomfortable, sitting at the bottom of Seth’s pocket and holding onto the fabric as he was jolted upwards with every stride.

“Sorry,” Seth said quietly of the corner of his mouth to his right pocket, keeping his eyes on the road.

The faint roars of dragons sounded in the distance, and both Seth’s “dragons are cool” voice and his “boy oh boy, this is bad” voice immediately started screaming.

Fighting to keep them both down, Seth tried thinking about pink elephants. Or Hugo. Or fairies. Or _literally anything else._

When they hit the border, entered Terrabelle, and no longer had to worry about outpacing dragons, Hendrick and Noble both started to slow. Calvin released the bottom of his pocket, almost silently sighing in relief.

“You okay?” Seth whispered.

“I’m fine.”

Turning back to stare at Terrabelle, Seth took a few minutes to just stare blankly at what he couldn’t help comparing to a movie set.

Seth wasn’t hyperfixated on aesthetic beauty, but he also had, y’know, functioning eyes and could appreciate the fact that Terrabelle was pretty, effortlessly achieving the charming fantasy aesthetic that made him think about when he was in elementary school and dressed up as an adventurer with a foam sword and the coat with eight pockets Grandma Larsen had given him for his sixth birthday. It was helped along by the fact that Terrabelle looked like it was populated entirely by movie actors, pretty people wearing pretty clothes in pretty houses. Most of Wyrmroost smelled faintly of blood and mostly of dirt, which wasn’t hard to top, but Terrabelle still smelled like nice plants and. . .comfort, kind of? Leading his kind of life meant that only about 20% of his day-to-day life tops was spent in nice, cozy places, so Terrabelle was probably a little less astoundingly amazing than he thought- Kendra and Hendrick both seemed underwhelmed in comparison when they first came, but still. Terrabelle blah blah very nice blah blah.

Also, a lot of people _still_ waved when he came into town and he felt incredibly famous, which gave him the buzz he’d need to be cool, calm, and casual while trying to get Garreth alone and convince him to translate the book. Hopefully! Maybe! He’d take what he could get!

Garreth, surprisingly, met him at the gate like the really great and helpful guy he was, possibly saving him from having to convince Dalgorel of the half-baked front he was amazed had gotten him this far. Immediately, Seth dropped at least some of the remaining frustration he’d built up when he learned that Garreth wouldn’t openly rebel even though he wanted to. Some.

“You. . .wanted to meet me?” Garreth asked. “Me specifically?”

Seth immediately realized that this was a terrible plan, his lie was dumb, and he shouldn’t be here, buzz disappearing and dread settling in its place. The whiplash nearly made him choke on his own spit. “Mmm-hmm.”

“Why?”

“I had. Questions. And. Things?” Seth tried not to look at Hendrick, who almost definitely wanted to witness this conversation as little as Seth wanted to be having it, “about. . .diplomacy?” Seth finished.

Garreth, bless him, did not ask for more detail. “I’ll try my best to answer any of your questions,” he said, giving Seth A Look, one which was definitely conveying something. Seth, unfortunately, being rather new at diplomacy, could not guess for the life of him what he was supposed to have gotten from that. “I’m guessing you’re asking about diplomacy concerning my father?”

“That factors into it.” It didn’t. It was a book. Seth didn’t even like books that much. This was stupid. He should go home.

“In that case,” Garreth said, “come with me.”

Seth snapped out of the spiral he had been falling down and gave a thumbs up. This was way farther than he thought he would get.

The awkwardness died down somewhat as Garreth led Seth into the castle and down a few corridors instead of immediately confronting him about how weird he was acting, and he eventually decided to bite the bullet.

“Okay,” he started, “so I might not have been entirely honest about why I wanted to meet you.”

Garreth stopped and turned back to look at him. “I assumed,” he said. “I would have had a few reservations about your capabilities as a caretaker if this was how you normally acted and your first visit was the exception.”

Seth sighed heavily. “Yeah, that’s. . .nicer than I would’ve put it. I’m usually better at lying too, don’t worry. It’s just. . .been. . .y’know?”

Continuing to be just the _absolute best_ , just the world’s nicest guy, just a shining beacon of hope in the dark, Garreth let that go without any comment. “So, your true reason?”

“I have this book,” Seth started, “which I can’t read, and which Calvin can’t read, and since you know at least one language we don’t, I figured statistically, I might as well try asking you?”

Garreth stared at him for a few seconds. “That wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

“I’m full of surprises.” Seth paused. “It’s. . .a pretty bad plan, I know.”

As Garreth’s many, many wonderful habits concerning calling Seth specifically out on the dumb words that come out of his mouth have already been clearly outlined, the page or so of flowery language they deserve will be left to the reader’s imagination. “I’ve heard worse,” he said, grinning.

Seth nodded and kept his mouth shut.

Garreth stopped suddenly at a door that led into what was apparently one of many fancy rooms with indistinct purpose. He waved Seth inside, shutting the door behind them and gesturing for him to sit on what looked almost like a couch if Seth had to compare it to something a kid who’d lived most of his life in American suburbs would know.

“May I see the book?” Garreth asked.

Seth opened his satchel, dug around for a bit, and handed Garreth the book.

“Is Calvin also invested in the contents?” he asked.

“Only since Seth is,” Calvin said from his pocket. “Do you want me to leave?”

“I see and no.”

Garreth opened the book and skimmed through the contents before closing it and handing it back to Seth.

“Interesting choice,” he said. “It’s an informational text about clouds.”

“Oh,” Seth said. _Great! Amazing! Wonderful! Magic books?! Who needs them!? What could I possibly have wanted this to be!? What are the pros and cons of just walking out of Terrabelle and letting the dragons do with me as they wish!?_ he thought.

“Did you choose it intentionally?”

“I didn’t know what it was about,” Seth said very quietly.

“Do you still want me to translate it for you?” he asked kindly. “It would probably be about two months of work. Are you. . .interested in clouds?”

Seth had a decision to make. On the one hand, asking for the translation would require anyone who he didn’t hate with a passion to spend two months translating and handwriting a textbook about clouds. On the other, he’d come this far, and by gum, if you’re going to stick your foot in your mouth, you might as well get the whole thing in.

Seth went back and forth for a bit.

“It would be cool if you could translate it,” he said, “but I’m not gonna force you to spend that much time doing something that boring unless you’re fine with it.”

“I don’t have anything more important to do,” Garreth said with a wry smile.

“In that case, thanks?” Seth said. “. . .do you want the book back then?”

“Yes.”

Seth handed it back to him.

“That’s all I actually wanted to talk to you about,” Seth said.

“You don’t want to learn diplomacy?” Garreth asked, almost definitely sarcastically.

Seth crossed his arms and stared at the floor. “. . .I mean, I definitely _should_ learn diplomacy,” he admitted, “but I would rather watch someone translate an informational text on clouds than spend a single second learning it.”

Garreth gave him a look which said something, and, surprise surprise, he couldn’t figure out what. “I had assumed you would leave.”

“I lied to get this meeting,” Seth reminded him. “It’s been, like, five minutes. That’s not enough time for a lesson. I have at least an hour to kill before it’s convincing.” He vaguely remembered attending an educational institution before his life became mostly trying to stop the monster of the week from unleashing horrible torment upon the unsuspecting world, and could definitely remember that most classes were, like, half an hour at _least._

“You could say I was a terrible teacher.”

“Then I would probably have to find another teacher to look convincing,” Seth said, trying to remember what substitute teachers actually _did._

“Understandable,” Garreth said, sounding like he didn’t understand but was willing to tolerate him anyways. “In that case, take a seat.”

After briefly disappearing for the two minutes of Seth’s life where the only emotion he experienced was panicked hope that nobody else would come in, and appearing with an empty notebook and a few pens, Garreth sat down at one of the tables, opened the book next to him, and began writing.

-

Having long ago resorted to pacing aggressively around the room as he watched Garreth write, Seth decided at forty-three minutes and twelve seconds that he would literally rather die than spend another minute doing nothing.

“I’m gonna go,” he said to Garreth.

Garreth nodded.

“So bye,” he said.

“Goodbye.”

Seth turned and walked out of the room.

Hendrick didn’t make any comments about the length of time, so Seth’s plan had either worked perfectly or was completely pointless, but it was still a relief when he collapsed into his bed and realized he could ostensibly pretend he’d spent the day doing something useful.

Calvin, who had climbed out of his pocket as soon as he’d closed the door, took a seat on the table next to his bed.

“What am I even gonna do with a book on clouds?” Seth asked himself, quietly.

Calvin, joining the ranks of lovely people in Seth’s life who didn’t punch him in the face every time he did something stupid, stood up to make eye contact. “You’ll think of something! The life of an adventurer is full of surprises, and you’ve found ways to use lots of strange or mundane things before now. But. . uh. . .more specifically, dragons fly in the sky, and clouds are in the sky, so you could start there. . .?” he said, trailing off.

They sat in silence.

“That’s rather tenuous, admittedly, but-”

Seth sat up, crossing his arms. “Why are you trying to make me feel better?” After being his own cheerleader for so long, he was pretty upset at being immediately upstaged.

“What?” Calvin asked.

Seth looked at him. “Like, why are you trying to comfort me about the fact that I impulsively stole a book for no reason and then insisted on making someone else translate it even though it’s super useless and there was no reason to go this far, etc. etc.” he said, gesturing vaguely.

Calvin considered it for a minute. “Most likely, it hinges on the fact that you’ve shown yourself to be intelligent, resourceful, and able to manage the consequences that come from your impulsive nature well enough to achieve your goals.”

Seth squinted suspiciously at him. “Hmm. Suspicious.”

“Why?” Calvin asked, sound slightly offended.

“'Cause you’re lying,” Seth said.

“I’m not!”

“Yeah you are.”

“Why would you intentionally deny a compliment?!”

“I’m just suspicious of people lying to me is all.”

“I’m _not_ lying!”

Seth tilted his head up to look down his nose at Calvin. “That’s just what a liar would say.”

“What do you _want_ from me?”

He paused. “The truth, I guess?” he said.

“That is the truth,” Calvin said painfully.

“That’s the exact opposite of what literally everyone who has ever met me in my entire life has said, so statistically, nuh-uh.”

Calvin made a noise of pure frustration. “Fine. You’re right. You’re not intelligent, you’re not resourceful, and you can’t manage the consequences of your impulsive nature. Happy?”

“No.”

Calvin glared at him.

Seth sighed, scratching his forehead. “Not trying to fish for compliments or reverse psychology or anything,” he said quietly. “So. . .just. . .don’t, y’know? I know this was kinda dumb. You don’t have to make fun of me for it.”

After a few minutes of still silence, Calvin started muttering something aggressively but very quietly under his breath.

Seth, pretty tired, decided to leave him to his secrets.

-

Warren was back a few weeks early, which Seth realized when he was walking to the kitchen and ran into him in the hallway of Blackwell Keep.

“Woah!” Warren yelled, stumbling back from where Seth had collided with his right shoulder. “Where did you come from?”

Seth spent the few seconds it took to figure out why Warren hadn’t seen him despite the fact that he was smack dab in the middle of his field of vision staring blankly before blankly saying “The shadows.”

“You’re getting better at that,” Warren told him.

“Thanks. Aren’t you supposed to be on a mission for the next two weeks?”

Warren shrugged. “Life is full of surprises. Like poison. I found a shortcut to retrieve the thing I was looking for, and I got it, but I also got drenched in poison and had to book it back to Fablehaven to avoid dying.”

Seth nodded. “Sounds cool.”

“It was really cool,” Warren agreed. “And, uh, I’m here in Blackwell Keep for the advanced rundown of the last six months, if you were wondering. What curse is on that medallion of yours?”

Seth glanced sideways. “It’ll be a fun surprise in your advanced rundown?”

Warren sighed, rubbed his forehead, and moved out of the way so Seth could make his way down the hallway.

-

Seth knew the minute Warren’s advanced rundown was complete, mostly because his “ _WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU_ ” echoed through the entire castle, stone walls and all. He couldn’t see outside, but he was certain the birds or their magical equivalents had all dramatically taken flight.

“Guess he found out they made two teenagers the caretakers of a dragon sanctuary,” Seth said.

“I was led to believe you regularly do things this dangerous,” Calvin said.

Seth laughed. “Not _not_ true.”

“Is he always like this?”

Seth made a so-so motion. “He tends to encourage us getting into trouble when we’re doing it for our own reasons. Less so when other people put responsibility on our shoulders. So he’d be fine if I snuck into Wyrmroost, but it takes a few to tango if we wanted to become caretakers, yeah?”

“The former seems far more dangerous than the latter.”

“Right,” Seth admitted. “Caveat: he’s fine with us getting into trouble on our own account if he can come with us and protect us with his life and bones. And skin. Basically, if he can jump in front of all of the swords.”

“Hmmmm.”

“Are you gonna make a comment about how humans are illogical?” Seth asked. “Because, totally agree, but I think it’s a part of the appeal.”

“I was considering something along those lines,” Calvin admitted, “although we Nipsies have our fair share of bad habits.”

“I wonder what Warren’s gonna do about me and Kendra being caretakers,” Seth said.

“Why would I know?”

Seth kicked his legs against the side of his bed for a bit. “I should go talk to him, and I should definitely not mention any of the things that happened in the first week we were here, and you should also not do that.”

Calvin shrugged. “Alright.”

Giving him a thumbs up, Seth walked off.

-

Warren’s plan, evidently, was to stay in Blackwell Keep and metaphorically hiss every time a staff member threatened one of them, although it also apparently had something to do with burning through a huge stack of dimestore novels.

Kendra mostly avoided him, and he was pretty sure she was spending most of her time reading with the horses, learning things, gaining knowledge, and other nerd stuff.

Celebrant continued to plot in peace, which, although it definitely, 100% meant that when he attacked it would be with fire and death and more fire and more death, had freed up most of Seth’s time.

Garreth requested a visit from Seth two months and five days after he had originally handed the book over. He was as vague about his reason as Seth had been. Possibly as payback, although _his_ suffering took the form of Warren being incredibly suspicious about the visit rather than general panic about the reasoning behind the request.

“The Fair Folk are neutral,” Seth said placatingly, “they’re not gonna attack me.”

“Still,” Warren insisted, “it could be a trap.”

This _conversation_ was definitely a trap, one which Seth would have to carefully lie his way out of. “I know Garreth. This is a follow-up to a visit I requested.”

Warren paused. “Have you considered taking a weapon?”

“I thought you didn’t want them to attack me!”

“Just in case!”

“Why are you even worried?” Seth asked, “I do dangerous stuff all the time!”

“Adventuring at Fablehaven with several allies in areas you know well and with magical protection is slightly different than meeting alone with someone you’ve only met a few times at a _dragon sanctuary!_ ” Warren yelled. “I’m. Look. I’m not saying you _can’t_ , I’m just saying be careful.”

“Okay,” Seth said. “I can be careful.”

Internally, he made a comment about how it’s really difficult to read a textbook dangerously, but since he both knew how cursed books work and that the textbook in question was one he stole from Warren, he kept his mouth shut.

Warren managed to convince Hendrick that he should come with them to Terrabelle, and then did an admirable job of not looking like he was trying to kill Garreth with his mind lasers.

_Don’t tell him about the book_ , Seth tried to tell Garreth with a look.

_?????????_ , Garreth replied.

Through a feat of masterful manipulation, Garreth turning out to be a great actor, almost entirely Garreth improvising and Seth nodding along behind him, Seth did not do much in that encounter, Seth and Garreth managed to separate themselves from the situation and Garreth retrieved both the original book and the version that he copied onto a stack of papers tied together at the spine.

“Your handwriting is better than mine,” Seth muttered, looking up at Garreth from where he was flipping through the packet.

“It’s not this neat by default,” Garreth promised him. “I spent the extra effort because I knew someone else would have to be able to understand it, and because should you be unable to read it, I would’ve wasted a lot of time.”

“Well, thanks,” Seth said. “This is great.” He looked back at the packet. “Do you want a ghost helper or something in return?”

_What are you DOING?_ the voice in his head which liked to at least try reasonable thinking screamed.

_MUST FIX PROBLEM_ , the Bad Idea goblin yelled back louder.

Garreth gave him a look, which Seth finally, finally realized meant  _?????????_. “Ghost helper?”

“I’m a shadow charmer,” Seth said. “Pretty much the most valuable thing I can offer you aside from feats of bravery and impulsiveness is the fact that I can control ghosts. Kind of.”

“As interesting as that sounds. . .” Garreth trailed off. “I don’t need a spirit for anything right now.”

“I could get rid of any annoying ghosts,” Seth offered. “Uh, also I’m pretty good at stealth, so if you need me to get you the latest gossip or something I’m sure I could figure something out. And I can talk to trolls and goblins, so if you need help with that I’m your guy. Actually, if you don’t want anything dark magic related, feats of bravery and impulsiveness are still on the table if you have a quest.”

_Stooooooooooop_ , Reason said.

_ALMOST FIXED_ , the Bad Idea goblin replied.

“We didn’t agree on you owing me anything,” Garreth replied.

“Yeah, but I’ve read fairy tales before,” Seth said. “Better safe than sorry.”

_What if you just never talked ever again?_ Reason asked pleadingly.

_HE WILL APPRECIATE JOKE,_ the goblin said.

“I’m not a fairy.”

Seth sighed, backpedaling. “Uh, it’s a name for stories about magical creatures in general. They’re just called fairy tales because that’s the magical creature people are most familiar with. Sometimes. Mostly. I don’t actually know, that’s more Kendra’s thing.”

“Nevertheless,” Garreth said slowly. “You _really_ don’t owe me anything.”

_This is your chance!_

_HE IS LYING. MUST REPAY FAVOR._

“But you did me a favor,” Seth said. “A big one. A boring favor, which is the worst kind.”

Garreth rested his chin in his hands for a moment. “If you really, really want to pay me back for doing something I just said you didn’t owe me anything for, then, well, I wasn’t joking when I said there isn’t anything to do here.”

_Well,_ Reason said tiredly. _That’s not too bad._

_GIVE HIM EVERYTHING YOU HAVE_ , the goblin insisted.

Seth tried to clear his head. He thought through every wonderful human invention he’d used to pass time on road trips.

His handheld was first, obviously, but it needed an electrical outlet to charge and he would bet his entire emergency kit on there not being three-prong electrical outlets in Terrabelle, so it would be a day’s worth of entertainment tops.

He had a Walkman, too, but that needed batteries, and his stash for Newel and Doren was the wrong type.

Moving onto things that didn’t need power, Lena’s paint-by-numbers projects would’ve been excellent candidates if they didn’t need so many messy materials and. . .well. . .and if Lena was. . .alive.

More books? Garreth could clearly read English, and nobody ever suspected Seth when books were stolen. Maybe.

Additionally, as he had been staring blankly into space for three minutes, he should say something.

“What do you like?” he asked.

Garreth shrugged. “Horse-riding, mostly? Reading is a way to pass the time. I haven’t tried much else.”

Seth nodded seriously. New things, then. His focus would have to be on surprise and experimentation.

Luckily, those were Seth’s forte. 

Unluckily, Seth’s forte usually had something to do with going outside and provoking monsters of late, which was pretty much the only thing Garreth couldn’t do.

Luckily, he had twelve prior years of experience in fun juvenile delinquency. His leather satchel had some things from the first incarnation of his emergency kit: rubber bands, the compass, his trusty squirt gun, string, and a whistle, although now it had the leviathan statue, a half-full bottle of courage potion, his swiss army knife, two cheap handheld radios, his game console, gloves, packets of loose granola, a tiny notebook, a ballpoint pen, a change of clothes, and now the books. He shuffled through it, pulling out everything but the books, the statue, the potion, the gloves, and the clothes.

“See anything cool?” he asked Garreth, who’d been patiently watching him spread everything out on the floor.

“I don’t know what half of these things are,” Garreth said.

_HE HATES YOU,_ the goblin shrieked, _DO NOT LET HIM MOCK YOU!_

_Be cool,_ Reason begged. _Be cool._

“Which is why they’re cool.”

Garreth stared blankly at the stuff. He picked up the game console, the notebook and pen, and the string.

_HE HATES-_

_Be! Cool!_

“How long can I borrow these for?” he asked.

Seth hadn’t thought that part through. “A month?” he said, naming literally the first name for a period of time he could remember.

Garreth nodded as Seth put the rest of the things back in his bag. “Honestly, I'm surprised nobody, nobody meaning my father specifically, has said anything about the fact that you’re asking to visit this often.”

Preemptively deciding he was gonna be cool, calm, and reasonable about this unexpected massive curveball, Seth nodded thoughtfully to give himself some time.

“Twice is a coincidence, three is a conspiracy,” Seth said.

“So you think he’ll take offense to it in a month?” Garreth asked.

“It’ll be interesting,” Seth said. “Hopefully in a good way.”

“Huh,” Garreth said. “It must be nice to be that confident.”

“Yep,” Seth lied.

-

“Not dead,” Seth called to Warren as he walked out.

“For now,” Warren said, exaggeratedly ominous. “I’m glad,” he added, more seriously.

-

The textbook about clouds was exactly what it said on the cover(“the Workings of Clouds”, Garreth had translated it). The translation was much shorter than the original, which Seth guessed was because Garreth added author’s notes whenever the original allegedly went on long tangents about the symbolic meaning of whatever it was currently describing that quickly summarized the symbolism and mocked the original author. He also wrote in thinner ink than the original with neat, precise handwriting that even ADHD as strong as Seth’s was finding difficult to make unreadable. Although there were no mentions of cumulous clouds, the only cloud word Seth knew, because the writer appeared to classify clouds by color rather than shape, so sunset clouds were different than midday clouds and thin clouds high up in the atmosphere were the same as what Seth was pretty sure were cumulous clouds. It also talked a lot about how light interacted with water.

In short, it was pretty interesting for a book about the weather.

Seth read it out loud to Calvin at his request, although that turned out to be because it was a surefire way to lull Calvin into sleep, so he would usually trail off after it was clear that he was out and read the rest of it silently. The book took him a week to finish, mostly because Garreth wasn’t alone in not having much to do, Celebrant still satisfied with lurking ominously.

Warren asked for his book back a few days after that.

“Why are you asking me about a book?” Seth asked disinterestedly, staring at the charm over Warren’s door he’d told Seth a few days before made it so nobody outside the room could hear what was being said within.

“You’re the only one who would’ve stolen it.”

“Why?”

Warren counted the reasons on his fingers. “Firstly, if it was an unknown thief they would’ve taken something more valuable than a book in fairy pidgin about clouds, and secondly, if it was Kendra or either of your grandparents they would’ve just asked me to borrow it, so thirdly, it had to be someone who was confident that they could steal from me but not interested enough to bother stealing anything valuable and probably not inclined to spend much effort. So, it was either you or Verl on a dare, and Verl would’ve broken down when I questioned him.”

Seth knew he had to get his lawyer genes from someone. “Okay, so it was me. Why do you have a book in fairy pidgin about clouds?” he asked, taking the original book out of his satchel and dropping it into Warren’s hand.

Warren took the book. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m trying to learn fairy pidgin, so I’ve been taking any book in it I can get my hands on. Admittedly, this is transcribed from satyr into the original language of the Fair Folk and then adapted into fairy pidgin, so it’s not the best learner material, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“That wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Warren said, winking. “How did you know it was about clouds, anyway? Did Kendra translate it for you?”

Seth realized his mistake. “Nooooooot exactly.”

“Who did, then?”

“I’m no snitch,” Seth said.

“Oh,” Warren said. “That’s why you wanted to visit Terrabelle, right?”

_This could be problemati-_

_PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC-_

“Nooooooope,” Seth said unconvincingly.

“Was it the guy you met at the gate to the castle? He seemed like he knew you, did he translate it? Did he translate the whole book? That must’ve taken forever, he must be-”

“None of your business,” Seth said, trying to stop Warren from figuring out what ink Garreth had used for the translation.

“C’mon,” Warren groaned. “I’m your cool cousin, you can tell me. It’s not even massively illegal or against the treaty or anything. It’s super overkill considering you have a fluent speaker right here in this household, but hey, you can make an omelette even if you insist on driving two states over to get eggs instead of just using the ones you have at home. . . .and also breaking those eggs.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m violating the neutrality thing, though,” Seth said, not even touching the metaphor.

“I’m not one of the Fair Folk, so you can tell me.”

“What’s to say you won’t tell Grandpa?” Seth asked.

Warren put his hand to his chest in mock horror. “Seth, as a fellow habitual rule-breaker, I am _offended_ that you think this little of me. Besides, if you’re interested in fairy languages too _and_ you have a friend who’s fluent, you and that gate guy are people I want on my side.”

Seth sighed. “The last time I trusted someone, Zzyxx was opened,” he reminded Warren.

Warren shrugged. “Every adventurer makes at least one horrible, horrible mistake. You just made yours too early.”

“Fine,” he muttered. “It was the guy at the gate, his name is Garreth, he’s Lord Dalgorel’s son, he translated the whole book for me, we’re not friends, and please, please, _please_ don’t tell anyone about any of this.”

Warren nodded. “Got it, but, again, none of this is even illegal.”

“I have a record of trusting the wrong people and making dumb choices,” Seth replied. “I tend to think of myself as guilty until proven innocent, so this is an accident waiting to happen.Also I did super lie about why I wanted to go to Terrabelle originally and had a smoking gun of an argument with Kendra so she will murder me in cold blood if she figures out I was lying.”

“I see,” Warren said. “In that case, I will keep your terrible secret to my grave, and, if you want, I have a few more books.”

Kendra would probably be at least a little proud of him when she was murdering him in cold blood, because he said “Yeah, that would be great”.

-

Seth knew he was psychic when Lord Dalgorel himself was waiting at the gate. He managed to keep his mouth shut while Hendrick and Dalgorel exchanged I-hate-you-but-we’re-not-allowed-to-kill-each-other-in-public pleasantries and Warren and he hung back and tried to look not suspicious.

“You have been visiting often for outsiders,” Dalgorel said. “Our neutrality would be compromised if we appeared to favor one side in visitation rights.”

“Not necessarily,” Warren said.

Hendrick looked back at Warren, trying to kill him with his eyes, giving him a look Seth read as d _ude, if you could do aaaanything else but this, that would be great._

“Our visits so far have been entirely social,” Warren said, having only visited once. “As far as I have seen, no strategical information has been exchanged and no alliances have been formed, so it doesn’t seem to have affected the current conflict at all. If we were in conflict over who had the most friends, it would be different, but we don’t gain any distinct advantage from this.”

Hendrick gave him another look Seth read as _this exact interaction is why Wyrmroost should have a dragon caretaker, and more importantly, a caretaker that doesn’t know you._

“True enough,” Dalgorel said. “However, if foul play is discovered, visitation will be immediately terminated.”

“Wasn’t that always the case?” Seth asked. “Obviously, we’re punished if we break the rules, which is why we’re not going to break the rules.”

Hendrick’s attempts to kill both of them with his mind increased in intensity.

Dalgorel looked at Seth suspiciously. “If that is as obvious as you say, then we have no further business.”

“Bye.”

About a minute after Dalgorel left the room, Garreth walked in awkwardly. “Greetings.”

“I’m psychic,” Seth told him.

“Good for you?”

-

“Books,” Seth told Garreth, depositing the pile on the table he’d sat down at. “For you.”

“Thanks,” Garreth said, pulling the game console out of the bag he’d brought. “I believe I’ve broken this.”

“Nah, it’s supposed to do that,” Seth said. “Do you have electrical outlets in Terrabelle?”

Garreth shook his head.

“Can’t really do anything about it then.” Seth took the console and put it in his satchel. “What are the books about?”

Garreth picked up the top two. “This is a collection of poetry and this two-sided page’s title is a random collection of words. It has ‘dragon’ in it, though, which is promising.”

The three under that turned out to be the epic of a fairy’s journey to find a mirror after being stranded in the middle of the desert, a book of sheet music, and a transcription of a passive aggressive series of signs between two opposing gardens about the plants that grew between them.

“I’ve gotta find you a book about swords,” Seth said after Garreth had finished describing them. “I don’t really remember when Mombi took over Fablehaven, but Kendra said the fairies had weapons, so there has to be at least one book about swords.”

“We probably don’t have any books about weapons,” Garreth muttered.

“Neutrality?”

“Neutrality.Additionally, exchanging books about weapons could be considered tactical information.”  


“But if I’m giving it to you-"

“How dangerous do you need these visits to be?”

Seth shrugged apologetically. “A leopard can’t change its impulsive nature.”

Garreth nodded. “Alright. Well, the page I can translate in about half an hour, so how about you find a seat?”

Slumping on a couch and taking out the Walkman he’d wisely acquired beforehand for just such a situation, Seth gave him a thumbs up.

-

“Seth, are you _reading_?” Kendra asked him when she walked in on Seth trying to find a light that was decent enough to read what actually did appear to be a completely random assortment of words.

“No,” Seth said, putting down the page. “Hey, if your fairykind thing means you glow or whatever, think you could find a way to make this room less dark and gloomy?”

Kendra stared at him. “Don’t you think reading is for nerds or something?”

“Yep,” Seth said. “If you’re not going to help, then I’m just going to move somewhere else.”

“What even are you reading?” Kendra asked.

“Volume one of all the reasons I’m awesome,” Seth said, moving past her to get to the door.

-

“Please help,” Seth said, shoving the translated paper and its original form into Warren’s arms.

“By all means, come in,” Warren said, taking the papers and stepping aside.”

After looking over both papers for a few minutes, Warren looked back up at him. “So either your translator is actually garbage, someone wrote this when they were testing out their magical word prediction software, or this is a code. Code is the coolest option, so I’m going with that.”

“‘Kay,” Seth said, leaning over the paper. “Is it possible to break a code in a language you don’t know?”

Warren had the face of a man who was pretty sure his plan was doomed but who didn’t have anything else to do until next Saturday.“Hopefully not? Since codes are almost always patterns, if the patterns are in the actual word structure or count or position, then it should be possible with some faith, trust, and pixie dust. If it’s based off of puns, that’s a different story. On that note, if you’re ever creating a code, have at least part of it rely on something only someone who understood that language would be able to pick up on.”

“Oooookay. And if the translator messed with the word position?”

“Then you go ask your Garreth about it.”

Seth nodded. “Patterns?”

Combing through something to see if a certain symbol was repeated a lot or if any phrases mirrored each other was, it turned out, really boring, even if it was only two pages long. Garreth had said that he’d translated the words exactly as they were organized, so Seth looked through the translated version while Warren looked through the original.

“It says ocean a lot,” Seth said.

“Every few sentences there’s a phrase five words long with weird spacing,” Warren said.

“This is nothing,” Seth groaned.

“Probably.”

“Calvin, you have any ideas?” Seth asked.

Calvin climbed out of Seth’s pocket and made his way to the table. “Possibly?”

“Wait,” Warren said. “Seth said you were a Nipsie. Shouldn’t _you_ speak fairy pidgin?”

Calvin shrugged apologetically. “We used to, but we’re a big, self-sustaining kingdom, and we’ve been solitary for a long time. Add that to the fact that normal fairies generally don’t willingly speak to us anyway and the fact that the caretaker only spoke English, and you have a recipe for your language ending up barely recognizable. Kendra could probably help more than I ever could.”

“Speaking of Kendra-“

“No,” Seth interrupted Warren.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Would it be out of line to ask why?” Calvin cut in.

“Yes.”

“Alright,” Warren said. “Moving on, then.”

After two more hours of pointing out patterns, they had two long lists and zero ideas.

“So in the translated version,” Seth said, pointing to the paper he’d taped to the table, “the words ocean, dragon, and cloud are repeated a lot. Sentences start and end with nouns. There aren’t any adjectives. There are some yeses but there aren't any nos.”

“Original version,” Warren said, pointing to his paper. “Every other word has a straight line somewhere in it. All punctuation is replaced by dashes. there are a few unusually spaced sentences and in each one, the word in the center left is a mirror of the word in the center right in the previous or next sentence. There are a few paragraphs spaced so that words are in a spiral.”

“Both versions,” Calvin said. “Every fifth sentence has five words, and every tenth sentence has fourteen.”

“Anyone have any ideas?” Seth asked.

Calvin and Warren shook their heads.

“Well, codebreaking _is_ cool,” Seth said, “so I feel slightly less bad making Garreth do this.”

-

“If you’re going to keep making references, can you at least give me the book they’re from so I can understand them?” Garreth asked.

Seth shook his head. “The James Bond books suck. So do the movies, actually. James Bond is more of an icon, y’know? Transcends the dumb stories he’s in.”

“In that case,” Garreth said, “I’m going to start talking to you in ancient fairy until you start speaking understandably.”

“ _Two can play at that game_ ,” Seth said in goblin.

Garreth squinted. “That was just nonsense.”

Seth didn’t give up. “ _The Wright Flyer III was the world’s first practical powered airplane, sturdy enough to withstand repeated flights and able to stay aloft for as long as its fuel lasted. Through a remarkable mix of scientific inquiry and hands-on experimentation-_ ”

“Fine, fine!” Garreth said. “That’s definitely _a_ language.”

“Don’t ever doubt me again,” Seth said. “What does ancient fairy sound like, though?”

Garreth made a noise that sounded like an extended wind chime mixed with light rain.

“How do you make your voice _do_ that?” Seth asked in awe. Fairy languages always sounded at least a little like music, but aside from what he’d heard pre-milk, Seth had never heard a language that sounded entirely wordless.

“The same way you can sound like a drunk, deep-voiced rat, I imagine,” Garreth replied. “Practice.”

“That’s what goblin sounds like?” Seth asked. “It’s a shadow charmer thing,” he said when Garreth looked at him confusedly, “I didn’t actually _learn_ goblin. Actually, I’m learning it backwards. Pretty much all I can do is tell which language I’m speaking, but it still all sounds like English.”

“Can I become a shadow charmer?” Garreth asked immediately. “Instant fluency sounds _incredible_. You haven’t truly known suffering until you’ve had to learn grammar for a language with no words.”

Seth fought the urge to scratch the place the revenant had ghost-burned him and tried to remember that it was a joke. “There are. . .caveats,” he said. “You should try for fairykind, though. Apparently all you have to do is get kissed a lot. I mean, you have to impress the Fairy Queen or whatever, but at no point do you have to almost get killed by a zombie and get infected by a cursed nail, so Kendra definitely got a better deal. Also, being fairykind means the Fairy Queen likes you. The only person that liked _me_ because I was a shadow charmer was that guy who tried to take over the world by opening Zzyxx, and he kidnapped me and held me in the world’s most boring cell for way too long. Wait, scratch that, there’s also the demon who tricked me into healing him so he could try to take over the world too, leveling Fablehaven and killing one of my grandpa’s oldest friends in the process. Essentially, pretty much only demons like you if you’re a shadow charmer, and they only like you because they think you’re dumb enough to set them free. Wraiths make deals with you, but have you ever _met_ a wraith? They’re _boring_. If you’re a shadow charmer and you hold hands with someone fairykind, theoretically you become one whole dragon tamer, but actually Kendra figured out that if you try hard and believe in yourself, being fairykind is enough, so who knows if I was ever actually useful, so, consequently, who knows if being a shadow charmer is usefu-“

“Breathe,” Garreth said.

Seth stopped. “That was a lot,” he said.

Garreth nodded. “Are you. . .oka-“

“Don’t.”

“You said you had something you wanted me to help you with,” Garreth said, more quietly.

“Yeah,” Seth sighed. “Yeah, I do. You know the dragon word soup thing I asked you to translate last time?”

Garreth nodded. Seth took out the papers. 

“Did you figure out what it was?” Garreth asked.

“That’s what I need your help for,” Seth said. “Warren thought it might be a code.”

“Warren?”

“The guy who I get the books from,” Seth said. “He comes with Hendrick sometimes.”

“I see,” Garreth said. “Were you going to tell me?”

“I thought I did,” Seth said. “I figured I’d’ve had to by now.”

“That seems reasonable,” Garreth said. “So, Warren thought it was a code. I don’t know much about codebreaking, so I doubt I’ll be much help.”

Seth smirked. “Well, you might not be good at codebreaking, but _I_ have some practice.”

“Do I want to know?” Garreth asked.

“My friends and I used to have to organize meeting spots under our teachers’ noses,” Seth said. “So I’m okay at making/breaking codes, origami, and parkour. Admittedly, that might not help much with breaking this particular code. Mostly, we thought you could help because you’re fluent in the language the code is in.”

“Fair,” Garreth said.

“So. I have a list of patterns,” Seth said.

-

“I have what could charitably be considered an idea,” Garreth said.

“Shoot.”

“Well, although most of your patterns are fairly standard grammar quirks, the noun thing is strange. The five/fourteen word count happens twice, but it _could_ be something.”

“Soooooooo,” Seth said. “Any idea on what kind of code it could be?”

“Sentences aren’t supposed to end with nouns,” Garreth said, “so the words could be rearranged, or maybe if the nouns are isolated they’re an important list.”

“So to figure that out, we try to rearrange the sentences and list out the nouns.”

“That’s what I was thinking, yes.”

-

“Does ‘ocean rock runs’ mean anything to you?” Seth asked.

“No.”

“D’ya think some sentences are nonsense to throw us off the trail? Or maybe some sentences have to be combined or something?”

Garreth shrugged. “Possibly.”

Seth nodded, erasing a few marks. “Okay, does ‘Ocean rock yes bag climbing runs jumps rolls’ mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“Ugh.”

“The list doesn’t seem to be going anywhere either,” Garreth sighed.

“Ugh,” Seth said, drawing it out longer this time. “I forgot how frustrating codebreaking is when you aren’t the one who wrote it.”

“You’re a shadow charmer,” Garreth said slowly. “Do you have any abilities that might help?”

“Uh, theoretically I can unlock any door,” Seth said. “I’ve never done it, but world domination guy told me I could, and since you can always trust people trying to take over the world, it’s probably true. Maybe it bleeds over into code.”

“How so?”

“Well,” Seth replied, “I’m gonna look _really_ hard at this code and will it to solve itself, and then we’ll see.”

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” Seth mumbled.

“Valiant effort,” Garreth said.

Seth sighed. “I should go. If I take the translated version, can you keep working on the original?”

“Sure,” Garreth said. “See you next time.”

“See ya.”

-

“What are you doing?” Kendra asked, making Seth jump.

“Building a lamp,” he said.

“Why?” she asked. 

“Nunyabusiness.”

Kendra sighed. “Seeeeeeth. I’m your sister. You love me. You’ve been acting weird. We’re in a dragon sanctuary. If you do something dumb you’re gonna die. I don’t want you to die. Seth.”

Seth, who had been trying to shade walk out of the room, slumped and turned to face her.

“You haven’t talked to me normally in five months,” Kendra said. “Just. Tell me you’re not raising the dead.”

“I am not raising the dead,” he said honestly. “I’m not even doing anything weird.”

“Then what _are_ you doing?” she asked.

“I’m. . . .reading,” he mumbled.

Kendra stared at him. He stared at the floor.

“Okay,” she said, finally. “That explains why you’re being so weirdly shady. Why do you keep going to Terrabelle, though? It’s definitely not diplomacy lessons, so. . .are you trying to break Lomo out of prison?”

“No?”

“What are you doing, then?”

Seth smiled awkwardly. “Secret?”

“Wait,” Kendra said, starting to smile,

“No,” Seth said, “Stop that,”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Kendra asked, grinning.

“NO!” Seth yelled. “I’m not _you_.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend either,” Kendra said, sitting down at the table Seth had jumped up from and motioning for him to join her. “ _And_ I’m not going to stop bothering you until you tell me, so spill now and save yourself the pain.”

Seth sat. “I’m.” _find a solid lie find a solid lie find a solid lie_ “doing.” _don’t snitch don’t snitch don’t snitch_ “telling. . .Eve. . .I’m telling Eve stories about the rest of the world,” he finished. “The first time we went, she asked me to take her out of Terrabelle to see the outside world but I decided not to be dumb and start a war with the Fair Folk so I keep going there to tell her stories about all the cool things that happen which is why I’m reading and. . .stuff. . .and she’s like twelve so the idea of me dating her is gross so never, ever say that to me again, okay?”

“You’re thirteen,” Kendra said.

“Listen, I get that you’re dating an ancient unicorn or whatever,” Seth said condescendingly, “but some of us like to mostly stick to people about our own age.”

“Low blow.”

“You pulling the girlfriend card is a low blow,” Seth said. “It’s weird when everyone else does it, but I thought my own sister might not do this to me. I’ve never even been on a date, so you’d _think_ people would get the message.”

“Isaac Mitchell.”

“Never speak to me again,” Seth squeaked.

Kendra laughed. “Seriously, though. You’re not doing anything dangerous?”

“I don’t think so,” Seth said. “I mean, I’m specifically trying to do the thing I’m doing as safely as possible, but I think Lord Dalgorel probably hates me and there is maybe nothing I can ever do about that, which means that every time I visit Terrabelle I am running the risk that he will have ordered the entire town to throw rotten tomatoes at me. . .?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Kendra said, “but, if it helps, you’re better at being polite than you were a year ago.”

“You called Celebrant a worm and told him to slink back to his hole, so I’m taking your evaluation with a grain of salt.”

“Yeah, well, it worked better than your dumb inflammatory comments ever did, so there. Also, I was kinda riding the high of being a full dragon tamer, _so-_ ”

“Shut up!” Seth yelled. “You keep stealing my spotlight! I get Vasilis and kill two demons, you kill the Demon King. I’m missing, presumed dead for a few days when a giant frog demon eats me, you have an evil clone come and die so we all think you’re dead for weeks. I make the plan to retrieve the scepter under the nose of like a million dragons, you personally tell the Dragon King to slink back to his hole. So that’s one dramatic death and _two_ kings slain. _Unbelievable_.”

Kendra shrugged. “Well, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to top nearly leveling Fablehaven three times in your first year. And you became a shadow charmer after I became fairykind. You becoming a shadow charmer was way more dramatic, too.”

“You becoming fairykind hurt a lot less,” Seth said. “And you got to get the first artifact while I was stuck dying slowly outside.”

“This is shameful erasure of the fact that I almost got drowned by naiads on my way to the Fairy Queen’s shrine _and_ that I was pretty sure I was going to die when I went there.”

“Oh, boo hoo,” Seth said. “The naiads jostled you around and stole your boat, but being scared isn’t the same thing as losing a perfectly good foot of skin to ghost magic. Plus, you were never kept as a vapor in a bottle by the Sphinx. _You_ didn’t have to listen to him monologue for nearly as long as I did.”

“I was kidnapped by him too!” Kendra said. “At the same time as my evil clone was completely ruining my public reputation! And I had to deal with a vampire!”

“You got to eat normal food the whole time! Bracken had been there for centuries and he still couldn’t even figure out what half of our prison food was called!”

“That’s another thing!” Kendra yelled. “You were imprisoned with _Bracken_! I was imprisoned with two old men who played chess all day! Your cellmate turned out to be a powerful ally! Mine were completely useless!”

“My cellmate was an old man too! _And_ he ended up dating my sister, which is _weird_!”

“WE’RE NOT EVEN DATING!”

“Hey guys,” Warren said, “I know I’m interrupting something, but you should probably know that we can hear all of the blackmail material you’re screaming at the top of your lungs.”

“Oh,” Kendra and Seth said in unison.

“Also, who’s Isaac Mitch-?” Warren asked, before being pushed aside by Seth as he moved to sprint out of the room.

“Fifth grade classmate,” Kendra told him, stepping down from where she’d jumped on the table. “He had a dragon on his schoolbag and told Seth his hair looked like some superhero’s.”

“I understand completely,” Warren said.

“Also, he gave Seth handmade candy for his birthday.”

“Wait, really?”

Kendra nodded. “Seth had said that he liked lemon candy but didn’t think it was sour enough, so Isaac found some lemon candy, crushed it up, mixed it with the powder at the bottom of bags of sour candy, melted it back into one piece, and gave it to him.”

“Wow,” Warren said. “He sounds committed.”

“They moved to Canada when Seth was eleven,” Kendra said. “He was broken up about it for _weeks._ ”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” Kendra said, smirking, “you know _my_ embarrassing crush because of him.”

-

Seth sat with his head in his arms. “The things. . .are bad.”

Garreth patted his shoulder comfortingly. “I think I might have an idea,” he said.

Seth’s head snapped up. “You do?”

Garreth nodded. “Well, up until now we’ve been operating under the assumption that we can read everything written here. What we haven’t considered is that there might be writing we can’t see,” he said, holding up a candle and a match.

“So what, we should put it under a blacklight?” Seth asked, not super sure how the candle factored into it.

“Still don’t know what that is, but your tone makes it sound like you’re on the right track,” Garreth replied. “I was thinking umite wax,” he said, gesturing to the candle with his match hand.

Seth raised an eyebrow. “Now it’s my turn to not know what that is.”

“Markings made by umite wax can only be seen in the light of a candle made of umite wax.”

“Then why can you see the candle when it’s not lit?” Seth asked, pointing to the clearly visible candle

“I don’t even know where umite wax comes from, so you should ask someone else that question.”

“Moving on.”

“Moving on,” Garreth continued. “I waited to try this until you were here for dramatic effect.” He struck the match and touched the flame to the candle wick.

Lines lit up under some of the words on the open page, and extra words lit up in the margins, creating a clear path of entirely understandable sentences.

Seth and Garreth both swore loudly in their respective first languages.

“Well, _now_ these make sentences,” Garreth muttered.

“I can’t believe it was this easy,” Seth groaned. “Warren’s an adventurer. He probably knew umite wax existed. This is his fault. Hey, Calvin, why didn’t _you_ know umite wax existed?”

“Isolated kingdom, Seth,” his pocket said. “Not my fault.”

“Garreth lives in an isolated town!”

“Garreth is human-sized and has access to more information and resources,” Garreth said. “The blame is largely on fate. We didn’t even have umite wax until about three days ago. Additionally, you didn’t know umite wax existed either, so you can hardly point blame at a Nipsie.”

“That was phrased like an insult,” Seth’s pocket said suspiciously. “Or at least a condescension. I’m _proportionally_ pretty tall, you know.”

“I assumed your size would make it difficult to steal candles,” Garreth said.

“True enough,” Seth’s pocket replied.

Seth nodded. “Fair- wait, _steal?_ ”

“You didn’t invent the concept of thievery,” his pocket said. “Garreth’s right, though. I’m an excellent scout, but a terrible thief.”

Seth huffed, but turned to Garreth instead of making a retort. “Wait, you implied _you_ stole things too!”

Garreth gave him a look. “Remember when you first came here and I told you the story of how I stole a horse?”

Seth put his head back in his arms. “Oh yeah,” he said, muffled.

“Back to the matter at hand,” Garreth said. “I assume you want a translation of the decoded story?”

“Yes please.”

-

“Dragon rock in dragon ocean lies, dragon ocean with scale water runs, dragon tooth tide must bite, scale bag dragon tooth holds,” Seth read.

“That’s a lot of nonsense for one sentence,” Warren said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“But,” Warren started.

“But,” Seth echoed.

“It sounds like a treasure map,” Warren sang.

“So what you’re saying is. . .”

“. . .I should go and find that treasure, as I am a seasoned adventurer and you are thirteen and have a job to do here.”

“Hey! _I_ was the one who started this, I should get to find it.”

“Okay, but, counterpoint: you get that if you leave Celebrant takes over the sanctuary and starts an age of dragons, right?” Warren asked him.

Seth paused. “Yeah,” he said. “And it’s gonna be like that for the rest of my life, probably.”

Warren smiled comfortingly. “Probably not. You move from crisis to crisis pretty quickly, in my experience. This too shall pass, and all.”

“Yeah,” Seth said, “but I bet you ten dollars it passes like a tarantula through a heating vent.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means it’ll take forever, smell bad, kill someone, and make Kendra yell at me for trying to fix it.”

Warren shrugged. “That’s how it is sometimes- I know how frustrating it can be when you feel like a new problem crops up as soon as you solve the last one. Like, in my case, I tried to fix what I thought might eventually become a problem near the artifact at Fablehaven and then I got turned into an albino mute for several years before waking up to find that the organization I was a part of was run by a guy who was trying to take over the world and who briefly succeeded before the giant demon horde overpowered him and messed everything up. So, actually, I’ve been in constant crisis for about four times as long as you, so there.”

Seth grinned. A little. Reluctantly. “Guess so.”

“Still sucks that we have a treasure map and neither of us are cleared to follow it, though,” Warren said. “Not like I can just disappear into thin air, and the likelihood of Stan clearing a mission for could conceivably maybe be a treasure map that has to do with dragons in any capacity is. . .not good.”

“Yeah,” Seth said.

“Luckily,” Warren said, “I have the perfect solution to the fact that everything sucks right now.”

Seth looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “I’m not old enough to drink alcohol.”

“Absolutely not. No substance abuse until you’re at least eighteen,” Warren said. “Actually, not then. Substance abuse is bad, don’t do it. My solution was. . .I was gonna make it up as soon as I got here. . .I have candy?”

“Candy’s good,” Seth said.

“Okay,” Warren said, moving to grab a bag and dig through it. “So, most of this candy is spicy and in Spanish, but I think I have some normal hard candy somewhere. Unless you like spicy candy?”

“Spicy candy is good,” Seth said, taking the handful Warren held out.

“Great,” Warren said, “because this means that I don’t have to go out of my way to get good candy for you. Kendra likes the normal sweet stuff best, so the hard candy’s for her.”

“Sweet candy’s fine too,” Seth said, breaking off a piece of the candy he’d unwrapped. “Sour’s the best, though.”

“I knew,” Warren said.

Seth nodded, then immediately sat bolt upright.

“Wait, how- _Kendra_.”

Warren nodded.

“Is that why you offered-“

“Nope,” Warren said quickly. “This is actually super old and the only comfort food I have. Besides, if I got it because of. . .that, I wouldn’t have gotten everything but sour.”

“Maybe you’re actually a jerk,” Seth reasoned. “And you’re lying to me, and I hate Kendra a lot, how _dare_ she, I thought we were siblings.”

“Listen, if you don’t want the can-“

“I’m keeping it,” Seth said, shoving it in the pocket of his pants sans Calvin. “And also I’m leaving. For completely unrelated reasons, if Kendra were to be found somewhere in Blackwell currently, were would that be. . .?”


End file.
